[B-Greek] EILHFEN, Rev. 8:5 -- "aoristic"?
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Mon Nov 13 16:23:46 EST 2006
I would dispute the claim that Greek was not the mother-tongue of the author of the Apocalypse. Others as well have expressed the opinion that the author was deliberately writing in a archaizing Hebraic style. Offhand, I don't remember who I was reading recently who stated this. It may even have been in the _Encyclopedia of Judaism_.
george
gfsomsel
_________
----- Original Message ----
From: yancywsmith <yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net>
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 4:10:53 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] EILHFEN, Rev. 8:5 -- "aoristic"?
Webb,
M. Zerwick, Biblical Greek (§289) has a note on this EILHFA and
ERHKA (Rev 5:7; 8:5; 7:14; 19:3). The Greek of NT period papyri show
that the aorist forms of EILHFA and EIRHKA were known. Zerwick's
explanation of the use of perfect here is that they are not clearly
reduplicated and that, e.g. in the case of EILHFA, speakers of Greek
as a second language, as was the writer of Rev, would easily confuse
EILHFA and ELABON, simply seeing them as two different ways to say
the same thing. Angelo Lancellotti, in Sintassi Ebraica nel Greco
dell'Apocalisse suggests further that underlying this "confusion of
tenses" is the author's Aramaic or Hebrew mother tongue. As Greek
developed perfects went through a process of loosing some of its
specific senses of "state of affairs" resultant upon "past action"
and became a simple narrative tense like the aorist. So, a certain
amount of fuzziness might be expected, but, remarkably, most perfects
in the New Testament can be understood in traditional ways. This has
lead scholars to find explanations for why some perfects get used
like aorists, as in this case for example PEPRAKA (PIPRASKW) Mt 13:43
that otherwise has no aorist active at all; ESCHKOTA (in Mk 5:15)
refers to a completed (an defunct state of affairs, from the point of
view of the narrative time, previous to the narrative tense of the
sentence, like our pluperfect). ESCON would have been understood as
"got," so it wouldn't communicate any sense at all.
Yancy Smith
yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
5636 Wedgworth Rd.
Fort Worth, TX 76133
817-361-7565
On Nov 13, 2006, at 1:45 PM, Webb wrote:
> KAI EILHFEN hO ANGELOS [AGGELOS?] TON LIBANTWNON, KAI EGEMISEN
> AUTON EK TOU
> PUROS... Rev. 8:5
>
>
>
> Can someone confirm for me that EILHFEN (perfect) is truly
> equivalent to
> ELABEN (aorist) here, as ZG says? If it isn't, what nuance do we
> get from
> the use of the perfect?
>
>
>
> Webb Mealy
>
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